2. Some credit card holders pay high interest rates and late payment penalties.

3. Credit card annual fees.

4. Credit card holders tend to spend more on their cards than debit card holders.

However, DBS/POSB's current 5% rebate promotion with their DBS Visa Debit Card is rather nice, if you can take advantage of it. That's a credit card-like promotion. DBS/POSB also has a pretty good 3% rebate promotion on the POSB PAssion Debit Card, for medical expenses, and if you open a Child Development Account with DBS/POSB. Citibank's Tap and Save debit MasterCard is also rather good (1% flat rebate on the whole monthly spending cap of $10,000, and 2% back on EZ-Link payments with the card), assuming you can meet Citibank's steep $15,000 total relationship balance requirement to avoid monthly fees. (Standard Chartered has/had a similar debit card, but it's less attractive.) So there are some reasonable debit card deals out there, if you look hard enough.

You can also almost always get the same merchant discounts with debit cards, such as the "Use your UOB card to get 15% off at Restaurant Q, weekdays only" promotions. Most of those merchant promotions in Singapore help separate local resident customers from foreign tourists, offering a lower price to the locals for their off-peak custom. Debit cards are fine for that, unless the promotion terms and conditions specifically say otherwise. You can look through your debit card bank's list of merchant promotions to see if any interest you. Those promotions will be listed in the credit card section of their Web site (or mobile site), but about 99% of the time you don't actually need a credit card -- just any payment card from that bank.

Last edited by BBCWatcher; 27-12-2017 at 07:21 PM..

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